GSD-STU 0160600 Studio Option

Department of Urban Planning and Design

Rediscovering Glories

Instructor: Benedetta Tagliabue

T.A.: Cristina Brodu
Harvard University - Graduate School of Design
Core Studio 8 credits
Thursday and Friday (irregular course schedule)

INTRODUCTION
Our studio in Barcelona is an "atelier".
It is something in-between a professional office and a school.
I like to work with my students the similar way as I do in the Barcelona office.
I like to choose a theme or a project that we already have on our tables.
Through investigation academy meets reality.
We are going to reorganize a crucial site in the city: Plaza de les Glories.
New housing projects are collaborating together with representative and
industrial buildings as well as green space to create a new urban referent.
4x4 urban blocks. As big as Tiananmen Square.
We will discover the story of city planning in Barcelona. Together with the
recent history of its transformation we will try to recall Joseph Lluis Sert and
thus connect Harvard and Barcelona.
We will organize a trip to the city where we can get in touch with many voices
that can give us clues for our project. In Barcelona we will use the facilities of
the recently opened Foundation Enric Miralles.
Enric Miralles will be introduced as another theme in our studio.
Another link between Barcelona and Harvard.

FRAMEWORK
Plaza Las Glorias is located in the district of Saint Martin at its borders with The
Eixample, an area of Barcelona planned and constructed between the
19th and 20th century according to Expansion Plan for Barcelona of the
engineer Idelfonso Cerd in 1859: Plan Cerd.
In the Plan Cerda, Plaza de las Glorias was meant to be an important civic and
cultural center for the city, located at the intersection of the three main
metropolitan avenues of the plan: Avenida Diagonal, La Gran Via y la Avenida
Meridiana. This public open space, of 300x300 square meters, was taking as a
guideline for its orientation the path of the railway, built few years earlier than the
design of Plan Cerda.

1950-1986_Urban renewal at small scale: social housing, squares, streets, parks

In the 1950s Barcelona experienced an increase in immigration that leads to the
expansion of the city. At this time, there is important social housing constructed to
slow down the growth of the informal city. The predominant typology is the tower.
The demand for new housing is high and the densification of the Cerda blocks
cannot be contained.
In 1953, a new plan of Jose Soteras is introduced to address the spontaneous growth
of the city with a subdivision according to program, or zoning. Las Glorias is a focal
point of the plan, at the end of the Diagonal and adjacent to a district of industrial
development and social housing.
The choice of Glorias as new area of residential development fell within the logic of
urbanizing the periphery of the city. La Glorias presents a huge open space that goes
from North station to the parquet Clot: an area for which is there is also proposed a
bus station and a park next to the train station.

In the 1980s, a new program of urban renewal is introduced, promoted by the new
democratic local government. Relevant to this development is the critique and
activism of the architect Oriol Boigas and of the Urban Lab leaded by Manuel Sola
Morales.
Between the 1980 and the 1986, the city witnesses the design and construction of
140 projects, among which the restoration of small squares downtown Barcelona;
the Sants stations square; the relocation of the old slaughterhouse to the Barcelona
outskirts; new pedestrian streets. All seek an enhancement of the citizens quality of
life and engender popular support of the City Council.

1986 -1995_The Olympics & Urban renewal at larger scale: seafront, residential, sport
The Olympics constituted an excellent opportunity to carry out a renovation of
Barcelona at urban level, under new leadership and the support of the socialist
government of Felipe Gonzales at National level, and on the local front of Barcelona
by Pasqual Maragall. The vision of the later for the city was of revitalizing and
restoring a sense of dignity, to the Barcelona Landscape. For Maragall, the
relationship between good urban design and social welfare was a strong one. In his
words, section of the city which are the product of unbalanced speculation, or
decay, tell a story of misery, alienation and abandonement. Youngsters shouldnt
have to grow up in a landscape which isnt meaningful. Further, you need a
mnimum critical massin order to crate the spontaneous expansin of wealth,
nevessary for a certain level of vitality [Building a Barcelona, a Second Renaixenca;
Peter Rowe]
The interventions carried out at Urban level included the creation of new
Centralities, one of which was Las Glorias; the distribution of the sport facilities in
four main Olympic areas; the realization of new ring roads, included the one in plaza
Las Glorias; a new rail network and 35 km of new service galleries.

Today, the square has the configuration given in the 90s by the arquitects Andreu
Arriola, Gaspar Garca, Joan Mas and Artur Juanmart, with the consulting and
technical advising of the aeronautic engineer Adolf Moncls.
The square is occupied by a large roundabout of elevated heighways: el tambor ,
with a internal park and a sculptural composition made of twelve slabs,
commemorating twelve significant moments of Barcelona's History.

2000-2007_Urban renewal at metropolitan scale

New interventions to renovate and revitalize the area around Las Glorias where
carried out from the beginning of 2000, with the aim to make the square a central
hub for the North District.
The interventions where part of the regeneration scheme called 22@, or Innovation
district (Districte de la innovaci) a development aiming to convert into a
technological and innovation district the19th century industrial area of Poblenou,
part of the Sant Marti district and of the Idelfonso Cerda design for The Eixample.
The scheme also included the program of leisure, residential and public open space,
where Las Glorias was designated to be the main square, around which the plan was
centered.
The regeneration scheme for 22@ includes some landmarks such as Herzog & de
Meuron's Forum Building (built in 2004 as part of the interventions of the Forum
de las Culturas); the ME Barcelona Hotel (former Habitat Sky Hotel) designed
by Dominique Perrault. The plan also the renovated public spaces of the Parc de
Diagonal Mar, with the new project designed by Enric Miralles and Benedetta
Tagliabue. Other projects in the neighborhood include the Oficines Diagonal 197
by David Chipperfield, and the development of the seafront by Elias Torres.
The vicinity around Glorias includes a shopping centre (the Centre Comercial
Glries), a secondary school, (IES Salvador Espriu), and another landmark of the
22@ urban renewal plan: the Torre Agbar, a skyskaper designed by Jean Nouvel that
opened in 2005. It takes name from the Adgbar Group, a multinational holding

group of which hosts the corporate headquarters and the offices of companies it
holds the interests, including the Barcelona Water Company Aiges de
Barcelona. The skyscraper of 38 stories is 144 m in height and resembles the Norman
Foster office building in London named "the Gherkin."

2007_New visions
The new infrastructures proposed after the Olympic Games and the Urban renewal
at metropolitan scale is more ephemeral, with almost no physical support, and do
not so harshly impact the land. New thinking searches for development that allows
to functionally optimize old territories.
The tower buildings of this time are symbols of power. They can contribute to clarify
the urban identity and moreover they enlarge the typological repertoire of
Barcelona.
In front of the functional specificity of the space in the industrial era, the new
territory offers a higher functional complexity which implies the abandonment of
the zoning and the superposition of different functions (hybrid programs) in one
building.

2011_ The current Metropolitan General Plan for Las Glorias

In the last vision proposed by he municipality for Las Glries, there is a plan to
develop a park, bordered by a multitude of services at metropolitan level, including
a public library, an underground train station (served by RENFE and Ferrocarrils de la
Generalitat de Catalunya), a public clinic, a sports centre as well as the DHUB, a new
center of Barcelona's Institute of Culture designed by architects MBM: the Museum
of Design.

Resolving the circulation issues at ground level will require significant investment as
Grand Via will need to be buried, and many surface streets re-routed.
The open air and flea market of the Els Encants Vells, which backdates presence in
Las Glorias to 1928, will be soon moved to new facilities that will host the market
under a triangular roof were. The market design was the 2009 winning proposal of a
City Council competition, where b720 Arquitectos were placed first. The structure to
host the market, also named new Fira of Bellcaire market, are currently under
construction.
[Main sources:
Busquets, Joan. Barcelona : Evolucion Urbanistica De Una Capital Compacta.
12 Vol. Madrid: Editorial MAPFRE, 1992. Print. Colecciones MAPFRE 1492; Coleccion Ciudades
De Iberoamerica ; 12 .

Clos, Oriol. Barcelona, Transformacio : Plans i Projectes.

Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2008. Print.

Rowe, Peter G. Building Barcelona : A Second Renaixena. Barcelona.:

Barcelona Regional :Actar, 2006. Print. ]

STUDIO OBJECTIVES
The studio gives the opportunity to explore a complex urban reality as
experimental platform where to test site specific proposals of urban renewal,
housing, architecture, urban design and landscape architecture.
The new plaza can constitute a new visionary project for the city where
programs, operations, space configuration and structures facilitate the creation
of new relations and connections in the city;
It has to be the occasion to discover hidden potentials of the place, or to recover
it from critical conditions, making it flourish, as it couldnt yet.

The intervention has to aim to enhance encounter and diversity in its public
domain, and to become a point of confluence of socio economical forces.

The work has to plant seeds of change, regardless of the scale at which will
focus the intervention. It has to create a new active knots on the big network of
forces that shape the city, triggering a succession of social and spatial
transformation in its surrounding with possible resonance at urban level.
It can in fact create the conditions to mobilize the neighborhood to work for the
improvement of their public and private space, which the intervention has to
initiate at both levels.
The work has also to aim to improve the fluidity and permeability between
public and private space, their interconnection and accessibility.

The project has to acknowledge the history that shaped the site and the relation
with the context, to propose a contextualized and targeted intervention. The
principles can be applied to infinite case studies, but its important to
understand the peculiar conditions of a specific case; this in order to approach
the site with consideration and sensibility, not creating a new stratification, but
modeling the existing fabric to bring together old elements and aspirations,
tradition and innovation, in a new desirable equilibrium and functional
coexistence.
The project has also to enhance the integration of functions and their
interconnectivity in space and time, enhancing the reciprocal benefit they can
emerge from the proximity and merging of one function into another.
The intervention has also to focus on its users: taking in consideration their
movement in the space; their fruition and accessibility of the private and public
domain and of their hybrids; taking into account the visual point of view of the
user, understanding were we want their look to wonder while moving in the
proposed space and allowing them to embrace the spatial complexity of the
project and its surroundings from multiples points of view.

The conjunct actions of the intervention, at programmatic, operational and

morphological level, have to contribute to the transformation of the city in a
more functional, democratic and visually pleasant place where to live.

CORSE SCHEDULE AND REVIEWS

19-20 January. Course presentation..a Brief orientation on the theme.First

excercise on house and home.

26-27 January. Class reviews on house and home. Start thinking about the
urban space of Plaa de Les glories..its dimension and ways to rule it with
construction.

11-19 February. STUDIO TRIP TO BARCELONA

Here we will have a series of meetings and visits with good architects,
architecture and artists of the city of Barcelona. We will work and lecture inside
the "Enric Miralles Foundation" and we will be in close relationship with the
Miralles Tagliabue Studio.

23-24 February. Some desk crits to go more deep into the recent experience of
the site and the Barcelona trip..social and sustainable themes introduced

8-9 March.

MID TERM REVIEW.

Individual presentations of the first intention for the given site.

Each one will select a "strategy" and try to formulate the right "question" for the
site.
Guests will attend.

29-30 March. We will start a collective strategy taking into consideration the
different point of views of the individual proposals.

12-13 April. We will reflect on the future exhibition of the results.

Consideration on how to exhibit and explain. Elaboration of our own manifesto.
CORE REVIEWS with Benedetta and Dani Rossell

23-28 April. One week desk corrections and working section together with
Benedetta and Dani Rossell : CORE REVIEWS

1 May. FINAL REVIEW

Guests will attend.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arquitecturas en Ibiza, Joseph Llus Sert, n 7, Colleccide monografies de

la Demarcaci d'Eivissa i Formenteradel Collegi Oficial d'Arquitectes de
les Illes Balears
Edicin 2, EIVISSA 2002

SERT, Arquitectura Mediterranea, Maria Llusa Borrs, Ediciones Polgrafas, S.A.,

Barcelona 1974

Jos Lluis Sert 1901-1983, Josep M. Rovira, Ediciones ELECTA, Milano 2000

La plaa de les Glries Catalanes, un breu historia visual, Javier RUI-WAMBA

SEBASTIAN GUERRERO,Fundacin ESTEYCO, Madrid 2009

Plaa de les Glries Catalanes buits metafric ipaisatges seccionats, Kris W.

B. Scheerlinck, enQuaderns dArquitectura i urbanisme #2612011,Publicaci del Collegi DArquitectures de Catalunya, p.46-48.

[Last version: 04-30-2012]